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Same-sex marriage (SSM) & domestic partnerships

Washington Supreme Court ruling

Washington Supreme Court:

The State appealed both the Thurston and King County cases to the Washington State Supreme
Court. Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government predicted that:

"The
Thurston and King County cases will be consolidated and appealed to the
Washington Supreme Court. The attorneys for the same-sex couples, the Attorney
General's office, and the King County prosecutor's office have agreed to an
expedited appeal, which means the Supreme Court may hear oral arguments in
[2004-] December." 1

The cases were delayed until 2004-MAR. Because of their similarity, they were heard together.

2005-MAR-08: Oral arguments: Oral arguments were
heard on
MAR-08 before the Washington Supreme Court in the Andersen and Castle cases.
The plaintiffs were backed by the Northwest Women's Law Center, Lambda Legal
and ACLU-WA.

2005-DEC-21: Court decision expected: According to Focus
on the Family, the state's supreme court could announce its decision as
soon as DEC-29. Equal Rights Washington, the state's largest
gay-positive group, is organizing committed same-sex couples to marry as soon
as possible if the court decides in their favor.

Lynn Wardle, a law professor at Brigham Young University, speculated about
the motivation for the group to have many same-sex couples marry quickly. He
said: "It certainly does make it a little more difficult to persuade
people because the argument will be asserted, 'Well, you're taking away
rights that the court gave us'." It is certainly a lot simpler do deny
equal rights to a group of people than it is to forcibly divorce hundreds of
loving, committed couples against their will.

In late 2005-DEC, Focus on the Family staff speculated that a sudden influx of many
same-sex couples seeking to marry could generate a circus atmosphere at the
registry office. Focus suggests that this could give the impression that the
couples were not taking marriage seriously.

What was truly remarkable about this article on Focus on the Family
web site is its title. It says simply: "Washington
May be the Next to 'OK' Gay Marriage." Every other conservative
Christian news source that we have seen has always put "marriage" in
quotation marks in instances like this. They apparently do this to indicate
that they don't really regard same-sex marriage as a real marriage. In this
instance, Focus abandoned the quotation marks, implying that same-sex
marriage is valid. This is a remarkable development....or perhaps an
oversight. The quotation marks were still missing, as of 2006-MAR-31. 2

2006-MAR-25: Court decision still
expected "soon:" Focus on the Family repeated its expectation that "The
state Supreme Court of Washington is expected to rule on gay marriage"
shortly. 3

2006-MAR-31: Human Rights Campaign
anticipates ruling: Brad Luna of the gay-positive group Human Rights
Campaign, said: "Washington state's Supreme Court right now, any day, is
going to deliver their ruling on marriage, so it's something that we've been
waiting for a while now to happen." 4

2006-JUL-26: State supreme court finds
DOMA to be constitutional: The court decided by a vote of 6 to 3
that the state's Defense of Marriage Act does not violate the
Washington State Constitution. This decision overturns trial court decisions
in King and Thurston Superior Courts in this case. Justice Barbara Madsen
wrote:

"...the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting
marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers the State's legitimate
interest in procreation and the well-being of children...[Our]
decision is not based on an independent determination of what we
believe that law should be. A judge's role when deciding a case...is
to measure the challenged law against the constitution and the cases
that have applied the constitution. Personal views must not
interfere with the judge's responsibility to decide cases as a judge
and not as a legislator." 5,6

References used in this essay:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.